Lama Abu Haseera Nour Abu Haseera, 3 years of age, did not know or realize that her smile, her innocent face and smile, will be a target for Israel’s missiles of hatred and genocide. Nevertheless, it only took Israel a few second to kill Nour, and seriously wound her sister, Lama.

The two sisters went to a nearby local store, they wanted to buy some toys or candy, and they wanted to forget all the death, the smell and scene of death and blood resulting from the ongoing Israeli massacres and crimes against the civilians of the coastal region.

However, it took Israel only a few seconds to wipe out the smiles of the two children. An Israeli missile killed Nour instantly, and her sister Lama suffered a very serious injury.

Their father, Mahmoud Abu Haseera, held his two daughters so close to his heart, the same way he held them since they were born, but this time he was holding them at the Urgent Care Unit of the Shifa Medical Center.

“Where is my sister?” Lama asked with tears flooding down her cheeks, “Dad, where is my sister, is she dead?! Will I die too?!...”

These words were the only thing she uttered before falling into a coma due to her serious injuries.

Dr. Mohammad Abu Samra, who specializes in pediatric surgery and is the physician in charge of her treatment, said Lama was moved to the hospital after suffering various serious injuries, including shell fragmentation all over her body, a wounded liver, and so many wounds which forced the doctors to move her instantly to surgery.

The child, constantly asking about her beloved sister, was fighting for her life, was digging her way out of the sorrows of death with pure and solid determination to survive.

Eventually, she was removed from the Intensive Care Unit to another ward of the hospital, after her condition became stable.

Israel’s missiles of hatred target childhood, target innocence, target an entire population in the besieged and impoverished coastal region.

The occupiers, the aggressors, want to kill life itself, labeling every single Palestinian as a target for its hatred, racism and apartheid.

Hundreds of Palestinians have suffered injuries that have led to permanent disabilities.

The Ministry of Health said that Israeli missiles and shells have killed 561 Palestinian children, targeting them in their own homes and neighborhoods, while more than 3189 children have been injured, hundreds seriously.

“Israel deliberately targets life itself, in Gaza, by targeting the children -- the future of the country -- with tons and tons of missiles and internationally-banned shells,” Dr. Yousef Abu ar-Reesh of the Ministry of Health said. “Those shells mutilated the bodies of those children and innocent civilians. The Israeli army is an army of murderers, killers, family annihilators; it is an army which commits genocide and annihilation of an entire population.”

He called on the International Community, and all countries singing the anthems of Human Rights, to perform their duties, to hold Israel accountable for its crimes and massacres, to ensure that Israel stops its grave violations of all international treaties and human rights agreements.

Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip have reported that four Palestinians have been killed, later on Friday, and dozens injured, in different Israeli air strikes and bombardment targeting residential areas in the besieged coastal region.

The army fired missiles into homes in the Zawayda area, in central Gaza, killing one woman and wounding dozens. Medics and rescue teams, along with many residents have been searching under the rubble in an attempt to locate possible survivors. The slain woman has been identified as:

1. Hayat Abed-Rabbo Dahrouj, 40, Central Gaza.

Soldiers also fired a missile into a home in the Sabra neighborhood in Gaza, wounding at least 40 Palestinians, including children, women and elderly.

In addition, an elderly man has been killed, and several Palestinians injured by Israeli missiles striking the man’s farm in the Nusseirat area in Central Gaza. The slain man has been identified as

2. Ismael Musallam Abu Bteihan, 75, Nusseirat – Central Gaza.

Also on Friday, a Palestinian man and his son have also been killed when the army fired missiles into al-Qarara area, in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip; many Palestinians were injured. The slain men have been identified as:

By Ramzy Baroud Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com.

His latest book is "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story."

After every bloody episode of violence perpetrated by Israel, media spin doctors are often deployed with one grand mission: to absolve Israel of any responsibility in their acts of carnage.

Not only do these apologists demonize Palestinians, but anyone who dares to take a stand on their behalf. The main staple of this Israeli strategy has been blaming the victim.

Such a tactic is nothing new in the way the so-called "Arab-Israeli conflict" has been presented in Western media, whose narrative has been much closer to that of Israeli official and media discourses than that of Palestinians. This continued despite the decades-long military occupation, successive wars, and countless massacres.

Specifically, since the Israeli siege on Gaza, following the democratic elections that brought Hamas to power in January 2006, Israel needed all of its hasbara savvy, alongside that of its backers in Western countries to explain why a population has been brutalized for making a democratic choice.

The sheer amount of deception involved in the cleverly knitted story which purposely mixed between Hamas and al-Qaeda (as they once did between late Yasser Arafat and Hitler), among other ruses was a new low, even by Israel's own standards.

While the media demonized Hamas, the resistance and all the other "bad" Palestinians who voted for the movement, it intentionally ignored the fascism that was taking over Israeli society.

For the bad -- as in "radical,""extremist," anti-peace -- Palestinian to exist, they have to be juxtaposed with the good Palestinian, represented in Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and any faction, person or leader willing to, practically speaking, co-exist with the Israeli occupation.

The PA went even further, by cooperating with Israel to ensure the demise of the Palestinian "radicals," as in those who insist on resisting the occupation.

Thanks to the PA, the price for the Israeli occupation has never been so cheap. Despite repeated attempts at re-activating the so-called peace process, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu always found a way to torpedo such efforts, even those promoted by his closest allies in Washington.

"Peace" is a major risk for Netanyahu, whose government is sustained by Jewish nationalists and extremists, who feel no particular need to end their colonization of the West Bank. Abbas had done a great deal to ensure that Israel feels no pressure to negotiate.

Every attempt at resistance, even by standing peacefully with placards and banners in Ramallah's al-Manara Square was crushed; often brutally.

Gaza, however, remained an exception. Israel's brutality there has reached unprecedented levels, especially after Israel's Cast Lead Operation, which killed and wounded thousands. Many predicted that the crimes in Gaza would turn the tide against Israel, but they didn't.

Israeli influence over the media was still tight enough that somehow they managed to, at least, neutralize the impact of Cast Lead. The advent of the Arab Spring and the devaluing of human life, as happened in Syria, Libya and Egypt, somehow buried the Israeli crimes in Gaza; however temporarily.

Israel's argument that it was "defending itself" was no longer a sufficient excuse. No amount of hasbara was enough to explain the burying alive of entire families, the summary execution of civilians, the pulverizing of entire neighborhoods, the gunning down of fleeing children playing at the beach during a deceptive moment of "lull," the destruction of dozens of mosques and churches, the killing of civilians hiding in UN schools-turned temporary shelters.

It was particularly embarrassing for Israel, but also telling, that the Gaza resistance, which stood alone, fighting tens of thousands of well-armed invaders from tunnels, killed 64 Israelis. All but three were soldiers, mostly killed inside Gaza.

As the world was awakened to the level of devastation created by Israel in Gaza, many also became aware that such wrath is not independent from the fascism that has gripped Israeli society for years. In Israel, there is no longer room for dissent, and those in the highest positions of power, are the ones who openly and freely preach genocide.

In his excellent article in the American Conservative on August 6, Scott McConnell wrote, "All societies have their hate groups and extremists, but nowhere in the democratic world are they nearer to the center of power than Israel."

He elaborated, "In the 1980s Meir Kahane had a small following in Israel, but his pro-ethnic cleansing party was made illegal. Now Kahanists are in the center of the country's ruling ideology."

This was discussed in context of statements made by Moshe Feiglin, deputy speaker of the Knesset and a "top player in Israel’s ruling Likud Party."

Fieglin called for Palestinians from Gaza to be resettled in concentration camps, and all of Hamas and its supporters to be "annihilated." Who can now, with a good conscience, protest those who infuse the Nazi analogy to what is happening in Palestine?

Meanwhile, in this age of social media, where mainstream news networks no longer have complete command over the narrative, no self-respecting intellectual, journalist, official or any citizen with a conscience can plead ignorance and stand on the fence of neutrality.

Gaza has indeed changed everything. Israel's criminality and fascism should no longer be open for vibrant media debates, but it must be acknowledged as an uncontested fact. Our language, as in our perception,must also change to accommodate this uncontested reality.

To end the Israeli genocide and occupation, the wheel of continuous action must turn and keep on turning. Those who support Israel must be exposed, and those who facilitate the Israeli occupation and sustain its war machine are partakers in the war crimes committed daily in Gaza and the rest of Palestine. They must be boycotted. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement must grow and serve as the main platform for international solidarity.

Time for clever words and no action are long gone, and those who remain "soft" on Israel, for whatever reason, have no place in what is becoming a global movement with uncompromising demands: end the occupation, punish its sustainers, halt ethnic cleaning and genocide, end the siege, and bring Israeli and other culprits to the international criminal court for their massive war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"Hamas will pay a heavy price for this attack," Netanyahu's spokesman Ofir Gendelman cited the premier as saying on his Twitter account, adding that the Israeli army and Shin Bet internal security service would "intensify ops against Hamas until the goal of #ProtectiveEdge is achieved."

Bomb disposal experts in Gaza on Friday said that Israel had dropped the equivalent of six nuclear bombs on the tiny coastal enclave over the course of it's six-week assault, including many that the police say are internationally banned.

The explosives' engineering police of the Gaza Ministry of Interior said in a statement that Israel had dropped 20,000 tons of explosives on the 139 square mile (360 sq km) territory.

"Flechette shells, fuel-air bombs (which explode twice, including after impact), dime shells, and flechette shells saturated with uranium were fired at Gaza Strip," the statement added, stressing that the weapons "affect the environment, soil, and water and will affect the next generations by spreading diseases especially cancer."

The statement said that areas near the border like Khuzaa, eastern Rafah, Shujaiyya, eastern al-Mughazi, al-Bureij and Juhr al-Dik were hit with "the lion's share of Israeli shells and missiles."

The statement said that of the total number of explosive, 8,000 were dropped from warplanes, "killing entire families and crossing them out of the Palestinian civil register."

Drones, Apache, F15, F16 and "vertical" warplanes were used during the offensive, firing MK82, MK83 and MK84 shells.

The statement added that the Israeli artillery deployed in eastern Gaza City had fired high-explosive shells at homes and civilian property causing massive damage, especially in Rafah, Khan Younis, Shujaiyya and Beit Hanoun.

More than 60,000 artillery shells of different sizes were fired at Gaza.

During the assault, Gaza police bomb disposal experts said that engaged in 1731 different missions including treating explosive devices, suspicious devices. and vehicles, among other tasks.

Major Hazem Abu Murad, deputy head of the explosives engineering department, and Major Taysir al-Hum were killed while dismantling suspicious objects in northern Gaza Strip, the statement added.

According to the statement, Major Abu Murad was one of the most important experts and trainers in explosives engineering in Gaza.

Other engineering police members were killed or detained during the Israeli offensive on Gaza Strip, the statement added, without identifying them.